1. Field
The disclosure relates to methods and apparatuses with thermometer code converter function and, in particular, to electronic apparatuses and integrated circuits (ICs) with a low-power thermometer code converter.
2. Background
Increasingly, power management is becoming an issue in operating ICs. For example, wireless communication technologies and devices (e.g., cellular phones, tablets, laptops, etc.) have grown in popularity and uses over the past several years. These electronic apparatuses have grown in complexity and now commonly include multiple processors (e.g., baseband processor and application processor) and other resources that allow the users to execute complex and power intensive software applications (e.g., music players, web browsers, video streaming applications, etc.). To meet the increasing performance demand, the processors have increased in complexity and operating frequencies. As a result, substantial power is consumed while operating the processors.
The power consumption impacts the battery life of a cell phone. The heat generated by power consumption may affect the performance and reliability of the device. For example, the performance of an IC degrades when operating in high temperature. Thus, one design challenge is to manage the power-consumption issue in, for example, the aforementioned devices.